Consumers engage in electronic payment transactions for a wide variety of goods and services. One such product that may be purchased by consumers is access to a geographic location. For instance, music festivals, museums, concerts, sporting events, and other similar events and/or venues often will charge a consumer for entry. In some cases, a consumer may be charged not for access to an indicated geographic location itself, but rather for access to a good or service inside of that geographic location. For example, an amusement park may charge the consumer upon entry into the park, and perhaps additionally for the ability to ride the rides inside of the park. The same may be true of accessing national parks and the like. In many instances, consumers are charged a one-time fee to be paid prior to entry.
However, in many instances it may be more profitable for a merchant to charge a consumer based on a length of time to which the consumer is provided access to a location or a service located therein. For many consumers, it may also be more cost-effective to only pay for as long as they are in the geographic location or are using the purchased service. As a result, it may be beneficial for both merchants and consumers to pay for access based not only on location, but also on time.
However, it may be exceedingly difficult for a merchant to keep track of the time duration when a consumer is inside of a geolocation, particularly in instances where there may be hundreds or thousands of consumers coming and going at any given time, such as with an amusement park, music festival, museum, etc. In such instances, the merchant must be able to individually identify each consumer as they both enter and exit the geographic location, must determine the cost of the access when the consumer exits, and must receive payment details from the consumer at some point during the process to be able to initiate the corresponding payment transaction. Such a system is often utilized for parking structures, where a consumer is charged based on a length of time that their vehicle is parked inside the structure or area. Similarly, mass transit systems track ridership, not generally by time but by length of travel between stops.
Unfortunately, such systems are often unsuitable for locations and services where a large number of consumers may enter and/or exit at the same time, such as for an amusement park or concert, particularly when the boundary is porous to human traffic. In addition, such systems often require several computing systems and associated infrastructure, which may be expensive for a merchant and also difficult to install in existing areas. Furthermore, such systems may also be inefficient in instances where multiple payment zones may be desired, such as where separate fees may be charged for different areas of an amusement park or museum, or where a smaller payment zone may be placed within a larger payment zone, such as a VIP area at a concert. Conventional systems often require a great deal of hardware in computing systems, gates, readers of one kind or another at gates, distribution systems for tickets or the like, etc.
Thus, there is a need for a technical solution where a consumer can be efficiently charged for access to one or more payment zones based on a length of time inside the payment zone that is suitable for use in instances where a significant number of consumers may be entering or exiting the payment zone.